Martin Scorsese directs Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro in this true crime epic where Native Americans who have struck oil in the Osage Nation are methodically infiltrated and killed off by predatory whites for their land rights.

Arty Marty. Closer in pace to Kundun and Silence – this is a meditation and a judgment rather than an entertainment. Sure, you get a similar downfall of a surface-only crime family as in Goodfellas or Casino. There are bad choices, violence and the deadly thrall of graspable wealth. America again. But at a palpable three and a half hours there were plenty of walkout in our sold out opening weekend screening. Walkouts when KotFM span it wheels. Walkouts when it was hard to keep up with the bounding passage of time. And walkouts very close to the end when it became clear that Leo wasn’t going to save the day and this was the polar opposite of a white saviour narrative. And I don’t blame those Saturday night tenderfoots. As consummately made, and as fascinatingly acted, as Killers of the Flower Moon is I won’t rush to rewatch (hence the below score). The middle section does get stuck in the mud, and it would be improved if we got much more of a sense of Lily Gladstone’s suspicions and turmoil that she might be being gaslit. Instead we follow the whites, hoping our gut instincts, history and the fucking title of the film aren’t a foregone conclusion. As we walk past the strangers getting off the train, the Klan casually parading behind us, the suit wearing wolves circling closer and closer, we hope for anything but the reality.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Nah… this is more than enough for one sitting.

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/